Lotte's Song
by Effie Haste
Summary: In which Erik fails to die of love, and a little match girl finds more than she bargained for in the cellars of the opera house... [Leroux-based, crossover with Hans Christian Anderson]
1. Prologue

**I wrote the first draft of this story for NaNoWriMo last year and am posting on as a way of forcing myself through the painful rewriting process. Painful in the sense that I actually posted Chapter One a couple of weeks ago, only to belatedly realise that I needed to cut the first five chapters to make the story flow better. I've spent the last few weeks going over the synopsis with a fine tooth comb so rest assured this won't be another false start!**

**This story is entirely Leroux-based and is an exploration of Erik's paternal side. Madame Giry plays a large supporting role, as will Inspector Mifroid and, to a slightly lesser extent, The Persian. Christine will appear later in the story but anyone looking for a romance will find more joy elsewhere – see my favourite's list for recs.**

**For those after something a bit different, I hope this provides ;)**

**PS. I don't have a beta at present, and I have proofread this instalment alone whilst battling the flu, so apologies in advance if I've missed any glaring errors!**

Prologue

Madame Giry emerged from the administration block of the Palais Garnier a few minutes after midnight. It had been raining, and the pavements glittered beneath her feet as she walked along the wide, tree-lined boulevard that ran parallel to the Rue de Provence. It was not the quickest way home, but at this time of night it was the safest.

She walked as far as the new department store, and then cut down a narrow side-street, humming snatches of that evening's performance beneath her breath. One ear listened for the sound of footsteps other than her own, and her gaze darted suspiciously into each door well.

A few moments later she emerged onto the Rue de Provence. It was not much wider, but the street lamps were bright, and it had an air of quiet respectability that calmed her nerves. Its buildings were smart and uniform in design, their upper storeys tenanted by the middling sort of bourgeoisie – accountants and the like – while the ground level consisted of shops and dozens of tiny cafés. All of them closed now, of course. No respectable establishment stayed awake after the Opéra set had gone to bed.

She paused outside the faded blue door of number twenty, searching for her key.

Once inside, she locked and dead-bolted the door so that nobody could enter or leave the building without her knowledge. She took this duty very seriously. If one of the tenants wanted to use the door between the hours of midnight and seven o' clock then they would have to wake her up, although few of them actually dared, save for the young journalist who rented the garret room – the one whose cuffs were permanently ink stained and whose hair was badly in need of a trim. It was not unknown for _him_ to ring the bell at two or three o'clock in the morning. By now, he was so well acquainted with her wrath that he took pains not to cross her path at any other time of day.

There were twenty-four tenants in all. They inhabited ten apartments, laid out over five floors, connected by a single wooden staircase. There was no separate service staircase like there were in the buildings that lined the grand boulevards, no leafy courtyard – and no secrets.

Madame Giry got to know everything that went on at number twenty. She liked to think that she was aware of the smallest tremor, like a spider in a web.

In return for her work as concierge she was given her own apartment on the ground floor, but no formal wage. This had not mattered so much when her husband had been living. Pierre had worked as a scene-shifter at the opera house, and had brought home enough money to support his wife and their daughter, Meg. But he was dead now. Madame Giry had mourned for him, of course, but she was not the type to go into seclusion over such a matter. Instead she had put on her best frock, her feathered bonnet, and presented herself to the director of the opera house. The meeting had gone well, and for the last five years she had worked as a box attendant on performance nights. It was not much, but it put food on the table, and some of the subscribers had been unusually generous...

Remembering herself, she quickly made the sign of the cross.

Those things were in the past.

She tried to put them out of her mind as she unlocked the door to her apartment, fumbling in the darkness of a candle and matches.

There was very little to illuminate. The room in which she stood contained a table and chairs, a sideboard, and no other furniture beyond an old, wingback chair. It was pulled close to the cooking range, which had been built into the alcove of an earlier fireplace. Above the range was a mantelpiece that was cluttered with ornaments and keepsakes. Despite her humble means, Madame Giry was an avid collector of beautiful things, although in her case beauty was often in the eye of the beholder. Most of her treasures were gifts from the tenant's wives, who found the concierge a useful receptacle for broken ornaments, which she carefully mended – such as the oriental vase in which she kept her tips.

But her most treasured possessions were from the Opéra itself. A pair of ballet slippers carefully arranged to hide their worn pointes, a rose from one of Madame Strauss's costumes, and a collection of programmes from _La Juive, Faust, Polyceute, _and _Otello. _

When she had first come to Paris as a plump, exuberant girl of seventeen, she had worked at the old theatre on the Rue le Peletier. The theatre itself was long gone, burned to the ground one cold autumn night, but she could picture its salons and corridors quite clearly in her mind's eye. It was the place where she had fallen in love for the first time. Of course she had also met her husband there, but it was the Opéra that captured her heart. She loved the instruments, the songs, the sets, the voices, and the intricate costumes that she had washed and pressed with such care. She had lingered in doorways, laundry in hand, to watch the _corps de ballet_ as they rehearsed – and on one glorious, unforgettable night, Pierre had smuggled her into the flies, where she watched the final act of _Polyceute_ from the dizzying height of the catwalk.

Her life was smaller now. Two rooms and a pittance to live on – although the apartment was quite sufficient in size now that Meg was no longer at home. It was true that Meg was no great beauty, having inherited her father's thin, almost emaciated build and gypsy complexion, but she danced well, and had been able to afford her own lodgings since being promoted to the leader of the row. She was woman of independent means. Of course she still relied on her mother for many things – a few centimes here and there for ribbons, a new pin for her hat – but Madame Giry did not begrudge her these adornments. She wanted her daughter to have the same things as the other ballerinas.

She moved through the cramped apartment, setting the lamp down in the small adjoining bedroom.

In a different life, Madame Giry thought she might have performed on the stage herself, but after her marriage that dream had been quietly folded away. It would have been easy to feel embittered about the way things had turned out, but she knew that it was dangerous to harbour such feelings. Although she often felt a pang when she remembered her youthful dreams, the events of recent weeks served to remind her that she had many things for which she ought to be thankful. For instance, she was not destitute or imprisoned…

Carefully hanging up her gown, she took up her mother's rosary and knelt beside the bed to say her prayers.

For the last five years she had passed correspondence between the directors of the opera house and the mysterious gentleman who rented box five. He had always tipped generously – so generously that she had thought it wise not to question his somewhat eccentric instructions when it came to the delivery of that correspondence. Of course, she should have been more suspicious ... but how could she argue when he gave her twenty francs a month for each envelope he delivered?

A month ago she had learned that the envelopes she had been passing between the gentleman and the directors had contained thousands upon thousands of francs, which he had been exhorting from the management of the Opéra.

Worse still, they had accused her of being his accomplice and threatened to have her arrested!

That had been the night of Christine Daaé's disappearance. She had not been aware of it at the time, because she had spent most of the night locked in the stage manager's office, apparently to prevent her from assisting the _gentleman_ any further – as if she would! By the time she had been released several hours later, she had been so empurpled with rage that she had stamped home without even trying to find out if they still intended to turn her over to the police. Never had her character been so besmirched!

Biting her lip, she prayed that God would forgive her temper.

She had been incredibly fortunate. The business of the envelope had not been mentioned since that night, and the directors had not turned her out into the street. In fact, they had steadfastly ignored her. As for them threatening to have her arrested, a police inspector had visited her apartment a few weeks later, but he had not seemed particularly interested in her role in the exhortation. Instead, he had questioned her closely on the gentleman's habits, on his accent, and any personal details that he might have accidentally divulged. Madame Giry had given him a full and honest account. Satisfied with this, the inspector had left, and that seemed to have been the end of the matter.

Crossing herself once more for good measure, she blew out the candle and slipped between the cold sheets.

In the darkness her thoughts soon returned to the gentleman in box five.

He had called himself the opera ghost, as had almost everyone else at the Palais Garnier. Madame Giry had been the only one to think of him as a gentleman. Of course she knew that the building was supposed to be haunted; Meg kept her well informed of the stories doing the rounds amongst the ballet rats. Several of them claimed to have seen him in the shadowy corridor that connected the dancer's foyer with the dressing rooms: a tall, skeletally thin man, whose face was concealed by a black mask. Gabriel, the chorus-master, claimed that the black mask concealed a hideous death's head with glowing yellow eyes, and they did say that a fireman had once seen a burning skull floating around the fifth mezzanine...

However, to Madame Giry, the ghost had only been a voice.

She remembered the first time she had heard him. It was during a production of _La Juive_, a few months into her employment at the opera house. She had been going about her business when she heard three little knocks on the door of box five. They were coming from the inside, but she knew that box five had not been rented that night. Puzzled, she had opened the door, and found the box empty as expected. Just as she began to close it a soft, male voice had spoken. _"Do not be afraid, Madame Jules ... I simply require a footstool..."_

There was no-one there, but the voice had come quite clearly from the first seat of the front row. Surely it had to be supernatural? Invisibility aside, no-one else at the opera – apart from the old director – knew that she had been married, and that Giry was really her maiden name. She had asked the director to keep that information private. And yet the voice had known!

As the months passed, Madame Giry came to understand that the opera ghost knew everything about everyone...

They had come to an arrangement, whereby she would wait for those three little knocks, which usually came halfway through the first act of whatever was being performed. That was how she would know that he was in attendance, and she would bring him his footstool and his programme for the evening. Three further knocks signalled his departure, after which Madame Giry would find two francs waiting for her on the ledge of the parapet.

He did not always come alone. Sometimes she would find a lady's fan or a flower on the seat next to his, which she always kept safe and returned at the start of the next performance. She liked to think they were the ghosts of two lovers – fine bred folk, of course – continuing their courtship in death, although it seemed a little strange they should be haunting a building that had been standing for less than twenty years.

Then one night she found a letter waiting beside her two-franc piece. It was addressed to _Madame Giry_ in a peculiar, sloping scrawl of red ink. Opening the letter, she read its contents with growing amazement:

_1825. Mlle. Menetrier, leader of the ballet, became Marquise de Cussy. _

_1832. Mlle. Marie Taglioni, a dancer, became Comtesse Gilbert des Voisins. _

_1846. La Sota, a dancer, married a brother of the King of Spain. _

_1847. Lola Montes, a dancer, became the morganatic wife of King Louis of Bavaria and was created Countess of Landsfeld. _

_1848. Mlle. Maria, a dancer, became Baronne d'Herneville. _

_1870. Theresa Hessier, a dancer, married Dom Fernando, brother to the King of Portugal. _

And on the final line:

_1885. Meg Giry, Empress! _

Shortly thereafter, the ghost had requested Madame Giry's assistance with the business of the envelope, and she had readily agreed.

Despite the chilliness of the room, she felt a flush of embarrassment creep across her flesh. It seemed obvious now that his letter had been nothing more than a trick to secure her loyalty; that he did not really possess the ability to see into the future. She had been a fool to think that Meg – Little Meg, with her boyish figure and dark, protuberant eyes – would ever catch the eye of an emperor. Even if she _had_ been a beauty, that did not change the fact that they lived in a republic! And yet the ghost's letter had been enough to ensure Madame Giry's unswerving devotion.

She had explained all of this to the police inspector, and he had tucked the letter into the pocket of his coat, no doubt thinking her foolish as well.

There had been no more letters. Since the night of Christine Daaé's disappearance, no more little knocks had resounded from within box five, which had been rented out to the public without incident. It appeared that the opera ghost had grown tired of haunting.

That thought unsettled her now, and for the first time she felt quite unsafe in her ground floor apartment, even though she had fastened the dead-bolt herself. Did he know that she had told the police inspector his secrets? Joseph Buquet, the old scene-shifter, had boasted about his knowledge of the ghost – and he had been found strangled! Of course it was said that the poor man had hanged himself, and Madame Giry had believed it at the time ... but now she wondered if there was any truth to the ballerinas' gossip, that the opera ghost had murdered Buquet to ensure his silence. And if that was the case, what would he do to her when he found out about the police inspector?

She stared at the pale rectangle of the window at the foot of her bed, gripping her rosary more tightly.

It was said that the ghost heard everything...

Sleep did not come easily that night. She stirred at the slightest sound: a mouse scuttling behind the skirting board; a creak on the stairs; the occasional sound of footsteps overhead. Eventually she drifted out of consciousness, but her sleep was almost immediately disturbed by the chimes of the nearby Madeleine clock.

She dressed quickly, pulling on her old flannel dress and apron before going into the kitchen to light the stove. It needed to warm up for an hour before could make breakfast. As she coaxed the fire to life she heard someone knocking on the main door – the post boy, no doubt, who was usually her first visitor in the morning. She wiped the smut from her hands and went out into the vestibule to greet him.

On the threshold of her apartment she paused. Someone had tucked a letter beneath her door, and she stopped to pick it up. It was addressed to her in a slanting copperplate she did not immediately recognise. It must have been from one of the tenants, but she could not imagine why they had felt the need to come creeping downstairs in the middle of the night to deliver it. There had been nothing beneath her door when she had returned from the opera house.

She tucked the letter into her apron pocket. Whatever they wanted, it would have to wait until her morning jobs were done.

It was past seven o'clock and the city was beginning to wake up. She could hear the shouts of the early morning traders mingling with the clatter of horse hooves, and the café owner across the street was setting out his chairs and tables on the pavement. She paid the post boy and stood on the doorstep for a moment, drinking in the crisp morning air. It made her feel better to see the pale, blue sky above the rooftops. The city seemed cleansed by the previous night's rain – a reminder that life could start afresh with each new day.

She carried the post back along the darkened vestibule, sorting it into piles by apartment, scanning the newspapers headlines with interest.

There was more news on the de Chagny case. The examining magistrate had found the Vicomte de Chagny guilty, in absentia, of the manslaughter of his brother, whose body had been found floating in the lake beneath the opera house a few weeks before. The young Vicomte had not been seen in Paris since the night of Christine Daaé's disappearance: they were said to have been engaged, and the Comte de Chagny was violently opposed to the match. Of course that was understandable – Christine Daaé was a very talented soprano, but when all was said and done she was the daughter of a Swedish peasant, and not exactly a fitting bride for a man of such illustrious lineage.

Madame Giry was not sure what to think as she carried the post to each apartment. A romantic at heart, she found the idea of an elopement quite appealing, but the Comte's death cast an unsettling pall over the whole business.

The ghost had also not been seen or heard from since the night of Christine's disappearance, and he was said to live on the underground lake…

Could he have been involved?

It was better not to let that thought go any further. The ghost's business was nothing to do with her, Madame Giry told herself as she collected the sweeping brush from the cupboard beneath the stairs; neither was the de Chagny case. She tried to put them both from her mind as she began sweeping the communal areas. They would need to be mopped and scrubbed later, after most of the tenants had gone to work, but first the dust needed to be cleared. She forced herself to think of other matters as she worked, listing the items she needed from the market, for example, and Meg's latest request for a new pair of ballet shoes.

When she had finished she came downstairs to make breakfast before going to market. She remembered the letter as she was heating up the kettle. None of the tenants had mentioned it as she distributed the post, which was odd, and so she retrieved it from her apron with a puzzled frown. Perhaps it contained another addition to her shopping list. Putting on her spectacles, she squinted at the handwriting on the front of the letter for a moment before breaking the seal.

She let out a little cry when she saw that its contents were written in red ink.

_Madame,_

It began, copperplate abandoned in favour of the ghost's familiar, spidery scrawl. She sank into the wingback chair and continued reading.

_Forgive me for contacting you in such a manner. No doubt you will have noticed the extended nature of my absence from the Opera, and I would ask that you keep the contents of this letter to yourself, as I have no desire for the Directors – or anyone else, for that matter – to believe that I have any intention of resuming my former activities, for want of a better term. I trust that I can rely on your discretion as always._

_It has long been my intention to retire from the business of haunting, a profession that is really quite tedious once the novelty has worn off. The unfortunate events of recent weeks have led me to the conclusion that there is no time like the present._

_Of course, even retired ghosts have needs, however trifling, and for that reason I very much hope to retain your excellent services. Let me assure you that I do not anticipate my requirements being in any way extravagant, and you will be well rewarded for the inconvenience. Of course, I do not wish to make to make things awkward between yourself and the directors, and appreciate the troubles that your association with Box Five have already caused. For that I offer my humblest apologies and understanding should you choose to decline this offer._

_Whatever you decide, you may leave your reply in the third cellar, inside the hat crate which is next to the backdrop from Le Roi de Lahore._

_I remain, your obedient servant—_

_O.G._

Madame Giry read the letter twice, three times. The first and post disturbing thought to enter her mind was that the ghost knew where she lived. There was no stamp on the envelope, and the address was no longer than her name, so it followed that he must have delivered it personally, unless he had managed to acquire a manservant as well as a box attendant…

She folded the letter and clutched it to her breast to stop her hands from trembling.

Her ghost was alive!

The revelation filled her with confusion. On the one hand she was relieved that he was still alive, insomuch as a ghost _could_ be alive, for the unpleasant events of the last few weeks had not made her forget his many kindnesses … but on the other hand it frightened her to think that he had been here, in the still of the night, with no-one around to raise the alarm. If the dead-bolt had not deterred him then she could not imagine the door to her own small apartment would have presented him with much difficulty if he had wanted to get in.

Suppose he came back?

She stared in the direction of the stove, where the kettle had just begun its low, steaming whistle. Part of her was strangely inclined to accept his offer. Perhaps it was merely his flattery, the way he praised her conduct and discretion. Such words made her puff up like a peacock! He obviously held her in higher regard than the directors, who had treated her quite abominably after all her years of loyal service, casting aspersions on her good name and treating her as though she were some kind of half-wit. Granted she was not what anyone would call an educated woman, but she knew her letters well enough, and had more sense in her big toe than those silly men could muster between their thick skulls. What did she owe them?

Standing up, she took the kettle off the heat, although its whistle continued to echo in her ears as she paced around the small table, her thoughts in turmoil.

Of course she had not forgotten about the business of the envelope. For all his gentlemanly attributes, she now knew that there was another side to the opera ghost, one that was dark and criminal. She would be wise to put aside her resentment of the directors and see to it that she did not become further entangled in his schemes, however generously he proposed to compensate her.

There was really only one thing she could do.

Nodding decisively, she returned to the stove and opened the coal hatch, poised to throw the letter into the flames and have done with it.

At the last moment she paused.

_You will be well rewarded…_

She could not deny that the ghost had always been generous with his tips, just as she always struggled to make ends meet on her meagre salary. And there was something else… something in the tone of his letter. Something disarmingly human, vulnerable, even…

But it was too great a risk!

Fighting against her wavering resolve, she cast the letter into the fire, watching it blacken and curl as she muttered words of encouragement to herself. She was doing the right thing. She must forget his flattering words and dislodge the freakish sense of loyalty she felt towards an employer who had really been no more than a disembodied voice – and a very dangerous one at that!

In a few minutes the letter had been reduced to ashes, and Madame Giry turned from the fire with a heavy sigh.

If only Little Meg did not dance her way through so many pairs of ballet shoes…

**Thank you for sticking with me so far! Next installment will be from Erik's POV ;)**


	2. Chapter 1

**Massive thanks to those who have read and reviewed this story so far ;)**

**I'm a little nervous about posting this next chapter. I've tried my best with Erik, but it is very hard to do justice to the character as Leroux conceived him. Plus, you know, his mind is a box of frogs (whereas I am such a balanced, well-adjusted individual, etc…) This chapter also managed to double its word count in the redrafting process so this exploration of Erik's unravelling mental state is slightly more epic than originally intended.**

**Warnings: Suicide references, and general squickiness related to mummification and wax manikins. Erik is not exactly a happy camper in this chapter…**

Chapter One

He thought of the Sokushinbutsu, certain monks in Japan who were able to mummify themselves by sheer force of will.

It was during his time in Russia that he had first heard the stories. They travelled – as most stories did in those days – along the wagon trails of Samarkand, told by traders who travelled from the great northern fairs, down through Persia, and into the mysterious climes of the Far East.

The stories were nothing more than rumours, but Erik had been fascinated, and over the years he had collected every fragment, every scrap of information that could help him understand how such an extraordinary feat might be achieved. From what he had been able to discern it was a process that took several years. After the monk had decided to pay the ultimate price in their quest for enlightenment, they would spend one thousand days eating only nuts and seeds, taking part in a regimen of physical activity that stripped them of their body fat. For another thousand days they limited their diet further still, consuming bark, and drinking tea made from a tree-sap which made their bodies poisonous to the maggots that were responsible for the usual decay of human flesh. Finally, the monk would place himself within a stone tomb, with only a small bell for company. Each day he would ring the bell to let his fellow monks know that he was still alive. When the bell stopped ringing, the tomb was sealed for another thousand days, after which the other monks would open the tomb to see if their brother had achieved his macabre goal.

Erik thought of these things as a distraction from the leitmotif that plagued his thoughts every day, from the moment he opened his eyes to the moment – sometimes days later - that sleep claimed him once more.

He was not dead.

This simple, apparently unalterable, fact caused Erik to feel a great deal of anger. His anger was directed against his own body and its perverse refusal to die upon command, a betrayal that was heightened by every beat of the spiteful organ within his chest. He listened to its indolent rhythm as he lay upon his back in the narrow coffin where he had spent the greater part of the last five months.

Of course, there were other ways of achieving the desired outcome. He knew of poisons, for instance, that would stop the incessant beat of his heart like a clock. Hanging would have the same effect, or gassing – but he was too proud to resort to subterfuge. Admittedly, though, commanding oneself to death was more difficult in practice than it was in theory. Locked in a battle of wills against his own mortality, it was becoming depressingly obvious which one of them would emerge victorious.

It would not be Erik.

It was never Erik…

He did not even know why he kept up this embarrassing charade. It had been almost six months since the daroga had placed notice of his death in _L'Epoque_, and still Christine had not returned to bury his body as she had most tearfully promised. False and fickle girl! Erik had made it so easy for the child, even digging his own grave at the end of the Communard's tunnel so that she would be spared the trouble of rowing across the lake. He dug it close to the spring where she had fainted during their first encounter. How greedily he preserved the memory of her little head resting in his lap, the exquisite softness of her hair, which he had even dared to stroke – ever so gently – with the tips of his skeletal fingers.

For an entire month he had laid in that damp hole waiting for her to come and weep over his skeletal remains. At first he had thought of nothing but death – since it would have been very awkward if she had returned to find his corpse still animated – but when both death and the maiden had failed to materialise he had relocated his poor bones to the coffin in which he presently resided.

The only thing he had gained from his time in the grave had been a bad cold, from which he had unfortunately made a full recovery.

Damn his constitution!

In brighter moments, he cheered himself with the notion that Christine had truly wanted to come, but had been prevented from doing so by the nefarious schemes of the Vicomte de Chagny, who had no doubt married her within seconds of them emerging from his lair. Of course she would have come if it had been her own choice; she was such a dear, sweet girl…

This fantasy would sustain him for a time before darkness regained the upper hand, and then he believed her capable of all manner of treacheries which he would later admonish himself for thinking. Poor Christine! How could he blame her for wishing to avoid the sight of his decomposing corpse? He could not blame her at all, although he could not imagine it being any more hideous than the sight of his _living_ corpse, upon whose forehead Christine had bestowed the only kiss he had ever received. Not even his own mother could have borne such a thing. And it had been so kind of Christine to do it without betraying her disgust.

The soft chimes of the drawing room clock interrupted these maudlin thoughts, and he found himself counting the hours out of habit.

Ten, eleven…

Twelve.

A perfect hour for the dead to rise. He curled his fingers around the sides of the coffin and hoisted himself into a sitting position, ignoring the creak of his aging and malnourished joints as he clambered down onto the floor. He viewed the ruinous state of his abode with the same ambivalence as he viewed his physical condition, not sparing it a second glance as he passed through its dark interior.

He reached the drawing room, and worked the hidden mechanism that controlled the torture chamber.

A deep rumbling sound emanated from behind one of the walls. Once it had ceased, he opened a hidden door to reveal, not the mirrored room that had claimed so many lives during his time in Persia, but a spiral staircase, which led him to a seemingly impenetrable stone wall. Another deft touch and the stones slid away to reveal an ordinary store room in the cellars of the opera house.

Despite the late hour, Erik emerged cautiously from behind a backcloth which had been made for an unsuccessful production of _La Roi de Lahore_. Satisfied that _he _was the only thing lurking in the shadows, he moved swiftly to a nearby crate and lifted the lid. Resting on top of an assortment of moth-eaten hats was a small, wicker basket.

He swung it over one arm, shut the crate, and was back in his drawing room before even a spider had time to notice his presence.

A neglected pianoforte dominated one corner of the room. Erik swept away the carpet of cobwebs and shrivelled petals that covered its surface, put the basket down, and removed a pencil stub and a copy of the most recent list that he had left for Madame Giry from his breast pocket. Smoothing out the list, he began to unpack the basket's contents methodically, ticking each item off his list as he went along. There was bread and blue cheese to compliment his wine cellar, a small bottle of red ink, three hoggets of merino wool, five glass eyes in varying shades of blue, and a packet of modelling wax. He paused when he came to the last item on the list, and frowned.

_Figs. _

Erik was very fond of figs. In fact, it would not have been an exaggeration to say that a perfectly ripe fig was his sole remaining pleasure in life. This made Madame Giry's recent habit of forgetting them as unfortunate as it was baffling, as he felt that his instructions on the matter had been exceptionally clear. He very much hoped that tonight would mark a return to form.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled out the final item in the basket, a brown paper bag that should, in theory, contain no less than seven figs. But instead of the fruit's smooth and slightly pliant flesh, on reaching into the bag his fingers closed around a small oblong box.

He pulled out the matches and stared at them in consternation.

This was the third time she had presented him with such an offering in lieu of the requested figs. Had the wretched woman forgotten how to read? He had clearly stated that he required **six figs**, not another box of bloody matches – he had enough of those to burn down the entire quartier! He had even considered that the word 'fig' was the name of some new brand of matches, and had taken great pains to emphasize that he was referring to the fruit of the flowering plant of the genus known as _Ficus_, which he thought would have made further confusion impossible for anyone with at least half a brain – and yet she continued to wilfully misinterpret his demands!

Well, he would have no more of it!

Snatching up the bottle of red ink, Erik stalked into the library and seated himself at the bureau. He tore a sheet of paper from its pad and wrote the following missive:

_Madame,_

_Please find enclosed the twenty seven francs that are owed to you in payment for last week's provisions, in addition to the usual compensation for your trouble. _

_You will note that I have not included the two francs due in respect of the figs which you have again neglected to purchase, despite the polite reminder in my last letter. _

_Please ensure this oversight is not repeated._

_O.G. _

When the letter was completed he thrust it, along with grudging payment for the items she had actually remembered, into the empty basket, which he then returned to the crate in the third cellar for her to collect after the following evening's performance.

Errand complete, he sank into the drawing room chair with an exhausted sigh.

It felt like decades since he had last whipped himself up into such a fury. He simply could not understand the reason for this breakdown in communication, when their arrangement had run like clockwork for several months. It was really very simple. Performances took place at the Opéra on four nights of the week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Madame Giry delivered her basket full of provisions after the performance on Wednesday. He collected the basket on Thursday, and left payment for the items in the empty basket for her to collect after the Friday night performance. On Sunday evening, Erik would leave his shopping list for the following week, and Madame Giry would collect both list and basket after the performance on Monday, so that she could go to the market on Tuesday and complete the cycle on Wednesday. Erik had managed to arrange matters so that he and Madame Giry would never enter the third cellar upon the same night. He had even created a mechanical calendar to guard against him miscalculating the day, which might result in an accidental encounter.

It was of vital importance that he did not come into direct contact with another human being.

He knew from painful experience that no good could ever come of it…

Two days passed.

When Erik returned to the basket on Saturday evening, he saw that Madame Giry had taken the letter, but had not left a reply. Perhaps she was ashamed of her spelling, although it could not be any worse than his handwriting. Perhaps she was simply too busy, between her duties as concierge for that dreary building on the Rue de Provence, her job as a box attendant, and darning her daughter's costumes.

Perhaps…

A queer feeling rose in his chest as he remembered the tone of his letter. Erik should not have addressed her in such a disrespectful manner. God knew that she deserved his respect after everything he had put her through. A poor, toothless old crone, dressed in rust and lilac, she had nevertheless taken pride in catering to his peculiar whims, and she had discharged herself with great dignity when the directors had accused her being his accomplice. Worse still was the manner in which he had tricked her into helping him to exhort money from the directors, by inventing the absurd prophecy about her daughter becoming an Empress, which surely only a fool would believe…

That feeling again, gnawing at his sternum.

Guilt.

Hoping to avoid the unwanted intrusion of his conscience, Erik made his way back to his bedchamber, not to climb into his coffin but to visit his lady. She always cheered him up. His other Christine. His other Christine did not faint at the sight of his face or shrink from his touch. Indeed, he could even take her into his arms and she would remain smiling and compliant – not that he would ever take such liberties! No, his other Christine would be accorded the same respect as her human counterpart. Oh, but Erik had been neglecting her lately… A mouse had taken advantage of his absence by nesting within the honey-coloured silk of her wig; closer inspection revealed that the same rodent had also nibbled away her left earlobe. Erik loosed a soft moan of despair at this discovery. Removing the head and cradling it like the most delicate of ornaments, he brought it to his work table to get a better look at the damage, tilting it gently beneath the gas lamp until he was satisfied that the damage was confined to the left ear. Her pretty nose had not been eaten!

Allowing himself to breath, he placed the head upon its pillow and went to fetch the items that Madame Giry lately procured for him. The merino hoggets were supposed to augment the swell of her breasts, and it was with trembling hands that he set them aside for the time being. The eyes he would need presently. First, though, he would need the wax in order to repair her damaged earlobe.

He opened the packet and broke a piece off, softening it between his fingers before he set to work. Hunched over the small table he shaped a new earlobe quickly and carefully; speed was important as he needed the wax to remain pliable without becoming elastic. Once it was attached, he drew back slightly to admire his handiwork. To the untrained eye the effect was quite impressive. In fact, one might go so far as to call it worthy of a place in Madame Tussuad's esteemed collection.

Oddly enough it had been Christine herself – the real Christine – who had given Erik the idea of making a waxwork. On the terrible night that he had attempted to force her into marriage, she had naively likened the interior of his torture chamber to a display at the Musée Grévin, the city's newly opened wax museum.

In the weeks that followed her departure, Erik had remembered this comment, and a plan had soon formed. After all, if he could not have the real thing…

For a moment he entertained himself with the notion of finding employment in the studios of Grévin or Tussaud. His mask would not bother anyone there! He could even make a new one out of wax, and present himself as both artist and model – a walking advertisement! A little bubble of glee rose in his chest at such a thought, and he felt almost like his old self.

But his giddiness was short-lived. His other Christine might be up to Madame Tussaud's standards, but she hardly satisfied his own. The eyes, for example, were not exactly true to life. Christine's eyes had been the still, pellucid blue of the great Norwegian lakes that one saw in paintings. The present ones were far too pale and insipid-looking. Reaching up through her neck and into the hollow of her skull, he plucked the offending eyes out of their sockets and considered the selection that Madame Giry had brought him. There was china-blue, azure, lapis lazuli, and the purple-tinged blue of forget-me-nots. None of these were quite right. The last pair looked promising, though. He fixed them in place and saw that they were good.

Ignoring the feeling of dissatisfaction that still lingered, he rose to his feet and carried the head back to its body. It was only after he had fixed it in place and taken a step back to consider the full affect that his smile faded and despair flooded the cavern of his chest.

He had as much hope as the Danaides had of succeeding in his task. It was Christine's spirit, not her beauty, which had captured his heart. How could he ever hope to recreate that? Oh, he could create the illusion of life, just as Madame Tussaud had done when she created a model of the Comtess du Barry reclining on a chaise lounge. Sleeping Beauty, they called her. While the rule Comtess du Barry had lost her head during the Terror and lay dismembered, like so many others, beneath the soil of the Madeleine cemetery, her effigy in London remained intact and seemingly immortal, thanks to a mechanism that made her chest rise and fall in artificial slumber. By candlelight the illusion was said to be eerily convincing. Perhaps he could invent a similar mechanism, but even if he did, his other Christine would never be anything more than a charming automaton.

Reaching out, he traced the contours of her face with his long musician's fingers. Her waxen skin felt like that of a newly embalmed corpse. At any other time he would have found the irony of that darkly amusing, but now it filled him with a terrible, aching loneliness that stole the breath from his lungs and forced him to turn away.

_Oh, Christine…_

* * *

In many ways, his relationship with Christine, like his tenure as the opera ghost, had been an unexpected consequence of the business that had brought him to Paris sixteen years before.

Erik had not planned to stay in the city any longer than necessary. He had arrived at the height of a sultry, unpleasant summer, during which Haussmann's renovations created dust and havoc, bulldozing labyrinths of dense, medieval streets to make way for the new boulevards. The humid atmosphere meant that the dust, instead of dissipating, was trapped in a stifling cloud that hung over the city like a bruise for weeks on end. There was an exposition taking place on the Champ de Mars, and the population was swollen with tourists who had come to gawp at Japanese prints, marble statues, break mechanisms and prehistoric tools; or to marvel at demonstrations of the uses of petroleum oil; or to enjoy balloon rides over the pavilion and gardens.

How he hated the seething mass of bodies!

It was not just his deformities that made Erik feel uncomfortable – he had good reason to be nervous of who might lurk among the crowds.

The Khanom had not forgiven his escape from Persia. Her agents had already made two attempts on his life; once in Verona and again in Konigsberg, and he knew that he would never be safe in Europe as long as she lived. It became his plan to leave Paris as soon as possible, to cross the channel and take a steamer from Liverpool to the Americas. He had no great desire to see the New World – which sounded sparse and undeveloped - but the Khanom had left him with no choice; she seemed to have eyes in every paving stone of the Old one.

His business concluded, leaving him in possession of several papers, amongst them plans for a new opera house that was currently under construction. Erik had dabbled in architecture during his time in Persia, and he looked over the plans with a keen professional interest.

It was a peculiarity of the building's design that convinced him to remain in Paris.

As with all theatres, the area beneath the stage required exceptionally deep foundations; in the case of the new opera house they needed to be deep enough to accommodate no fewer than five mezzanine levels. The problems began almost immediately. Huge levels of groundwater were encountered, and the Place de l'Opéra soon resembled nothing more than a giant swamp. The architect devised a brilliant solution. Pumps were employed to allow the foundations to be sunk to the required depth, after which two walls were built, one within the other, so that when the water was allowed to flow back it was entirely contained by the huge cistern created by the inner wall.

It was the space between these walls that Erik was interested in. An ordinary architect might see nothing more than a coffer dam, but Erik did not look at the world with ordinary eyes. Instead of a coffer dam he saw the potential for a dwelling-place between the two walls. Not a palace by any standard, but it was quite sufficient for his needs. After all, it would not be the first time that he had worked his way into the fabric of a building – although admittedly he had been much smaller during his last attempt, and therefore more adept at navigating the crawlspace beneath the floorboards.

Undaunted, he set to work immediately. Along with the plans, Erik inherited the role of chief contractor, and he used this power shrewdly, often working through the night to make clandestine alterations to the walls and fixtures.

Three years continued in this manner. When building works were suspended by the Great Siege of 1870, Erik continued to work in secret, bringing in furniture, and concealing the entrance to his home so cleverly that not even the Communards who occupied the building after the siege were aware of his presence.

He was quite confident that the Khanom would not come looking for him in the bowels of the earth!

The Communards were brutally defeated, and work slowly resumed on the new opera house, although it would be another three years until its inaugural performance. Erik emerged from his hiding place soon afterwards. Despite the danger to his life, he knew that he could not stay in the house by the lake indefinitely – the isolation would surely drive him mad! Anticipating this, he had taken care to establish links with the outside world, however peripheral. The building was riddled with spy-holes and secret passageways, allowing Erik to observe the daily business of the opera house without being seen. Of course, he could not limit himself to simple observations, and he soon began interfering with the management of the Opéra, even finding a way to acquire a wage for his services as artistic consultant. The directors soon realised that a single note could not be played at the Palais Garnier without him being aware of it.

Although Erik took pains to remain unseen, he did occasionally venture out from behind the walls, creeping about the mezzanines and backstage corridors. It was not long before someone spotted him: a shadowy figure dressed in black who seemed to be able to vanish at will…

Rumours began to circulate that the building was haunted.

Erik was amused to discover that people thought he was a ghost. It was not the first time that he had been mistaken for one, and he saw the usefulness of such a disguise. People expected ghosts to materialise from time to time. Most importantly, the Khanom was not looking for a ghost. And so he encouraged. A few carefully staged encounters ensured his notoriety and deterred the more adventurous: a glimpse of his face in a darkened corridor, a burning skull on the fifth mezzanine. Soon, everyone knew him, but no-one dared come looking.

Almost a decade passed, during which Erik busied himself with the running of the opera house. He took his duties very seriously. He wanted the Palais Garnier to be the finest musical institution in the world.

Every summer, the management engaged a certain number of graduates from the nearby Conservatoire. Not all of the new recruits had their contracts extended beyond the autumn season or even signed in the first place. This was almost always due to Erik's interference, as he made a point of listening to every rehearsal, and would inform the directors if a singer or musician was not up to his discerning standards.

Christine Daaé had been one of these recruits.

A pale, sickly-looking creature, she displayed no obvious charm or talent, leaving Erik to wonder how she had been engaged in the first place. A rich benefactor, perhaps? She was pretty enough, in a symmetrical sort of way, but there were many girls in the chorus whose looks were more striking, so she had certainly not been engaged for her beauty, as was sometimes the case. There was a strange aura of sadness about her, as if she did not really want to be there.

The chorus-master, Gabriel, had also noticed that something was amiss. A few weeks after the season had started he ordered her to stay behind as the rest of the chorus left their afternoon rehearsal. Erik watched from behind a latticed wall as Gabriel accused the girl of not pulling her weight in rehearsals. Playing a few bars on the piano, he instructed her to repeat them.

Erik could not have prepared himself for what he heard next. Christine's voice was soft and undeveloped, but even in this neglected state it was one of the finest voices he had ever heard, so delicate and sincere that he almost forgot to breathe. It had been trained at some point, he could tell, but such guidance must have been broken off quite suddenly to leave her so completely without confidence in her abilities.

Of course, Gabriel, with his dull, pedestrian ears, was only capable of appreciating voices that blasted like foghorns – where Erik heard a neglected instrument in need of repair, Gabriel heard incompetence.

"If you continue to sing like that you will not be engaged for another season," he told her bluntly. "There are no excuses at the Opéra, and you cannot hide, even in the chorus. Do you understand?"

The girl blanched, and for a moment it looked like she might burst into tears, but she managed to compose herself.

"I understand, _maestro_ … but if I may … my father used to give me lessons. You see, I'm not to being taught amongst so many people," she explained in a soft, timid voice. "I don't mean to say that I should be singled out, but if you could find time to give me perhaps a few lessons, I'm sure that I—"

"And where do you think I would find the time for that?" challenged Gabriel, infuriated by her suggestion. "You are not at the Conservatoire anymore, if indeed you ever were, judging by the state of your voice! If you are serious about your career, mademoiselle, then you should go out and find your own teacher, and pay for it out of your own wages like the other chorus girls. Now, get out of my sight!"

In that moment Erik could have quite happily throttled the pompous chorus-master. How could he be so deaf to the girl's potential? It would not take very much; the right encouragement, someone to root out the cause of her problems and to correct the bad habits that had strayed into her technique. Such things were elementary. Why, even he could teach her…

Erik stopped himself. Of course _he_ could teach her, in theory, but in practice the notion was quite absurd.

Wasn't it?

In the weeks that followed he gave more thought to the problem of Christine Daaé. Such a voice, if properly developed, would be a great asset to the Opéra, as well as bringing him great personal satisfaction.

He began collecting information about the girl. It was easily done, for the dressing rooms and salons were rife with gossip. He that she was orphan who had come to Paris from Sweden with her father, a violinist who had died almost two years before, accounting for the disruption in her training. As for the Conservatoire, it transpired that her guardian – now also deceased – had been a teacher there, whose personal friendship with the previous director, Monsieur Poligny, was to thank for her engagement at the opera house, despite her obvious shortcomings. Erik inferred from her conversation with Gabriel that Christine had found it difficult to adjust to such a formal environment after her father's lessons. He was not surprised that she had not blossomed at the Conservatoire, although her _premier prix_ suggested that she was still capable of giving a good performance when the occasion demanded it, which he found very interesting. Perhaps he had a future prima donna on his hands…

He wrote the directors and instructed them to move Christine to "haunted" dressing room, an isolated apartment that was so-called because its previous inhabitants had found the room less than welcoming. Erik had created this unpleasant atmosphere in order to keep the room empty, because he used it to access the Communard's tunnel that led to the underground lake. Its entrance concealed by a two-way mirror that swung open by means of a pivot and counterweight of his own design.

Christine was installed in the room, and for weeks he watched her through this mirror, unsure of his next move.

One night she came to the dressing room in tears. Erik had never seen her cry before; despite her unhappiness she had always managed to contain her emotions. Something had obviously happened – an unkind comment from one of the other girls, perhaps – to break through this façade.

Locking the door, she took a few steps into the room and then sank to the floor, her body shaking with violent sobs.

"Oh, Papa… You didn't want this… You didn't…"

Erik watched in alarm as her words became phlegmatic and incoherent. If she carried on much longer then such noises would ruin her vocal chords! He had to do something, anything to make her stop. Perhaps if he could distract her in some way…

Almost without thinking, he began to sing. It was a simple song, one that he remembered from his youth spent travelling amongst the gypsies; the kind a mother might sing to soothe a fractious child. Ordinary in those circumstances, but a strange thing to hear in a Parisian dressing room.

Christine took the bait. She looked up in surprise, a sob catching in her throat.

"H-hello?"

He ignored her question, continuing to weave his musical spell, letting his voice slide about the room so that it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere in particular – a technique he had learnt during his sideshow days. He watched with some measure of amusement as she tried to find the source of the noise; looking in the closet, even venturing out into the corridor.

A few moments later she returned. Something in her demeanour had changed. She seemed oddly peaceful. Locking the door again, she leaned her back against it and closed her eyes, listening quietly until the song had ended.

"Thank you…" she murmured, when he had finished.

Erik remained silent. To his surprise, she opened her eyes and approached the mirror, kneeling down in front of it. Her gaze travelled over the surface of the glass, as though she knew he was there, although he knew it was impossible.

"Are you who I think you are? Papa promised you would come, and that I would not see you … but it has been so long, and I thought perhaps I was not worthy…"

"I am who I am," he replied obliquely. He could not think who she might be expecting, and thought it best to play along.

"I have tried to be a good girl," she said, twisting her hands together as though in prayer. "I say my prayers, and go to mass every day … but the music here is not pure like the music Papa thought me, and he said that you only appeared to the pure of heart, like in the story of Little Lotte. Oh, say that you've come! Please, say that you're him – the Angel of Music!"

Erik was stunned. He had heard of the Seraphim and Dominions, but the Angel of Music? The girl was madder than he was! He stared at her through the glass, at her moist, blotchy face and beatific grin…

She spoke again, her voice tremulous and unsure. "Are you him?"

And suddenly he knew exactly what his next move would be.

Erik was not a good man. He had lived his entire life beyond the pale of humanity, and had come to see himself as something quite apart from it, so he felt no qualms about what he was about to say.

"Yes, child, I am the Angel of Music…"

* * *

She was watching him.

Drifting back to the present, Erik felt her glass eyes upon his back, and turned to face her once more. Her expression seemed full of reproof and accusation. He wanted to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness, but even he recognised the futility of such a gesture. The one who deserved his prostrations was gone now, and he hoped that the boy was helping her to forget what had followed here, in the house by the lake.

He deserved to be forgotten…

Turning away, he wandered through the dusty rooms like a sleepwalker, only half conscious of his surroundings. He knew that he was beginning to lose time. It was hard to measure down here, even with the aid of his mechanical calendar. He paused in front of the library clock and listened to the way it ticked in tandem with his heart. They bent to the same rhythm now. Sometimes he felt as though its steady ticks were the only thing keeping him alive. After all, he had tried so hard to die. If he were to stop his faithful windings…

Sinking into a nearby armchair, his thoughts returned immediately to Christine.

He had never intended to fall in love with the girl. How could he? Love was for ordinary people, with ordinary faces, who lived in ordinary houses made of ordinary bricks. He was a mountebank living in a house with a false bottom. He did not even have a face!

It was also true that his reasons for helping Christine had not been particularly altruistic. On a human level he could not have cared less if she was sacked by the management. Sopranos were hardly in short supply, and besides, she did not even want to be there. Erik saw her as little more than a broken instrument that needed mending. It was an experiment, just as many years ago he had taken apart a clavichord in a forgotten corner of his father's chateau and put it back together again, after cleaning each component, hoping to improve its discordant sound.

He had played the part of Christine's angel to satisfy his own curiosity, never imagining that he might develop such _ordinary_ feelings.

Their transformation took place alongside her voice. As it flourished she grew to trust him, and her eyes upon the glass, so full of esteem and affection, ignited something wonderful within his chest. He did not recognise it at first. Then, a few months later, when she confided that she had seen the boy – her childhood sweetheart – the jealousy was suffocating. He tried to end it then, realising that the charade had gone too far - but she assured him that her heart belonged to him alone! From that moment on, Erik allowed his feelings to rage unchecked. It seemed impossible that one such as himself, who had always been shunned by society because of his face, should be accepted – loved, even – by one so beautiful.

It was a lie, of course…

The poor girl had been petrified. Not of his face, in the end, but of something much worse. The true deformity was internal. His face merely warned of the monster that lay within, a monster that was unleashed when he discovered that Christine did not really love him, that she was so terrified of his affections that she saw no way out other than to elope with the boy. He had flown into a murderous rage. Desperate not to lose Christine, he had forced her into terrible ultimatum: agree to marry him, or he would blow up the opera house and everyone in it, including the young Vicomte, who had managed to trap himself in the torture chamber whilst staging a rescue attempt.

Being a good girl, Christine had agreed. She would have agreed to anything to save her boy.

Erik had fully expected her to commit suicide after the ceremony. Tragic heroines were inclined to kill themselves on their wedding nights, and Christine had already demonstrated her intentions by spending a good part of the evening attempting to beat her own brains out against a certain corner of her bedroom wall. He was content with this. One must seize one's opportunities when they arose, and at least they would be together in death. It was only when she had offered to become his living wife that Erik had realised the full horror of what he had been about to do and, taking advantage of this rare moment of sanity, he had released her and the boy.

She had kissed him then, chastely, and left him with the promise that she would return to bury his remains.

Now, as he stared into the fire's grey embers, he came to a disturbing realisation. He was quite certain that if Christine were to return to keep her promise and find him still alive, he would never be able to let her go…

That must not be allowed to happen.

A thought unfurled at the back of his mind. It was not a new thought; in fact, it was one that he had examined and discarded many times during the six months of his confinement.

There was a writing desk in the corner of the room. He rose, and made his way towards it. Inside a small and dusty drawer he kept his Punjab lasso. It had lain unused for many months, but now he took it out and drew it speculatively through his fingers. It did not look particularly deadly. A simple length of catgut, of the kind one used to string a lute or a violin; but this one had claimed many lives since it had first been put to use in an enclosed courtyard of the Khanom's palace in Mazanderan. That first murder had been committed in self-defence. As for the others… He could not remember how many more the Khanom had asked him to dispatch. It seemed like hundreds, now that he felt their weight upon his chest.

And the killings had not just been on the Khanom's orders. There was Joseph Buquet to consider, and the Comte de Chagny…

He carried the lasso back into his bedchamber, coming to a halt in front of the other Christine. She watched in mute anticipation as his gaze rose to the ceiling. A beam could be fixed there with no great difficulty. He glanced down at the other Christine, anxious for her approval. Her lips were curved into a slight, conspiratorial smile, as if she had guessed his thoughts and given her consent to the plan that was forming in his mind.

It seemed fitting that he should use the Punjab lasso. There was a pleasing sort of justice in the idea of dispatching himself with the very weapon that he had used on so many of his victims, and in doing so he would protect Christine from the possibility of suffering any further harm at his hands.

He smiled, gazing into the depths of her vacant blue eyes.

Soon they would be together for eternity…

* * *

The next seven days were entirely devoted to preparation. It had to be done properly, for Erik had always been a stickler for etiquette, especially where suicide was concerned.

There was the manikin to consider. His other Christine must look her best.

Now that her face was complete, he turned his attention to the rest of her body. He used the remainder of the wax to make her delicate hands and feet, shaping her fingernails from shards of pearl that had begun their lives as necklace beads and an inlaid jewellery box. He had been forced to improvise with most of the materials. For instance, her torso and limbs were made of wood and metal butchered from his pipe organ, whose disgorged remains now cluttered a far corner of the room. It had been a shame to destroy the organ, which had taken him many months to build, but at the same time it seemed fitting that he should create one instrument from the corpse of another.

Over this hard, unyielding skeleton he draped merino and linen; merino for the padding and linen stitched in such a way as to suggest the softness of the female form. He did not think it wise to concern himself with precise anatomical details. To do so might give rise to ungentlemanly emotions, and he must take care to always act like a gentleman where Christine was concerned, something he had not always done in the past.

It was difficult to remember this as he used the last of the merino to create the gentle swell of her breasts. His hands trembled, along with parts of his body that he preferred to forget existed. As soon as they were finished he draped his opera cloak about Christine's torso to protect her modesty.

Of course, she needed something grander to wear…

Erik had bought her several gowns during her time as his guest, but they were all hung neatly in wardrobe of her room. He could not bring himself to go in there. Only a husband had the right to enter a woman's room without first asking for permission. That left his mother's clothes. He had taken them out of Christine's wardrobe and put them in his own closet, as he had not wanted to arouse her curiosity. Christine really was most dreadfully curious.

He went to the closet and examined the gowns, which he quickly realised were entirely unsuitable. Christine might have been slender, but these gowns would have been snug on a girl of twelve. Had his mother really been so tiny? He remembered her being frail – almost birdlike – but she had always been in bed, shrouded in blankets and propped up by pillows, making her true proportions difficult to estimate. Besides, her clothes were too old-fashioned, their lace turned brittle with age.

Running his fingers along one ivory sleeve, he suddenly had a marvellous idea.

He would make her a gown!

A wedding gown, more beautiful than any bride had ever worn! Yes… and when the time came, he would imagine that they were standing before the altar in the Madeleine church, about to exchange their vows.

There was no time to waste. He would need buttons, yards of silk, metres of taffeta. Ribbons – he must not forget ribbons! Pulling out all of his mother's clothes, he picked apart their seams, salvaging anything of use, which was very little. Most of the fabric was close to disintegrating. He would have to ask Madame Giry for assistance. Returning to the library, he pulled out a few pieces of paper and wrote down his requirements, which seemed enough to clean out an entire haberdashery. He knew that Madame Giry would not be able to afford such expensive items and so he placed several crisp hundred franc notes inside the envelope, which he took upstairs and placed inside the empty basket. It occurred to him that Madame Giry might become suspicious of the fact that his list did not contain his usual request for victuals, so he hurried back upstairs and added a few extra items in his almost illegible scrawl. Bread, cheese…

Figs.

He forced himself not to dwell on the business of the figs. If he were to die with any semblance of peace, he must think only of Christine, and remove his mind from all other earthly desires.

Four days remained. They passed at an excruciating, glacial pace.

He filled them with further preparations for the wedding, eking out his limited resources as best he could. Deciding that he might as well put the matches to some use, he gathered up all the candles he could find and brought them into his bedchamber, along with the flowers that still retained their heads. They rustled as he set them in place. Suddenly realising what might happen if a candle were to set fire to the room _after_ the wedding, he hurried down to the Communard's dungeon and carried out a minute inspection of every crevice, until he was satisfied that every last grain of gunpowder had been washed away in the flood. It would somewhat defeat the object of protecting the world from his fiendishness if his death were to cause a deadly explosion.

Besides, he did not want the final tableaux to be disturbed.

Three days … two days …

One day remained…

Everything was ready except for the wedding gown. He had arranged Christine's hair into what he considered to be the latest bridal fashion, and had even laid out a final aperitif on his work table; the bottle of Tokay he had opened for Christine on the first night they had dined together. He had told her that he had brought it personally from the cellars where Falstaff had dined. In reality he had stolen it from an unvigilant Communard, but he had never been one to let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Soon, there was nothing left but to wait for Madame Giry to deliver her basket. The last day was the most excruciating, as Erik knew that the basket had been delivered, but he dare not venture into the third cellar when it was possible that someone might see him. He must not grow careless at the last moment.

He took up refuge in the library, where he passed the time in reading from the seventh volume of _A Natural History of the World_, a weighty tome whose words passed through his mind without making much impression upon it.

Eventually he gave that up in favour of listening to the clock. He closed his eyes, listening to the relentless ticks until he finally heard the tell-tale scrape that came before the chime.

Time to go…

He hastened upstairs and removed the lid from the hat crate. Alongside the usual packets of bread and cheese were several promising parcels wrapped up in tissue paper. He was surprised to see that Madame Giry had also written him a letter. He opened it, curious to know what she had to say.

_Monsieur le Fantome,_

_Please forgive me for leaving out the figs and I am very much aggrieved to hear that I overlooked them. It is strange that I did because I recollect buying them very clearly but must have got my thoughts muddied if monsieur takes my meaning. I have been run ragged this week what with the tenants asking for all sorts and I can only think that I gave one of them your figs by accident. I very much hope that you can accept my most humblest assurances that it will not happen again. I have taken particular care over the figs this time and I hope that you will find them to your liking along with the rest of your order. I have enclosed the left over money although it was not very much as the price of silk has gone up so much as to say it is almost daylight robbery. _

_Yours respectfully,_

_Clementine Giry._

_PS. Little Meg does very well as the leader of the row and minds herself to keep respectable and ladylike although she is a silly girl in many ways. We are both very grateful for your kind words to the directors._

A lump rose in his throat as he read her clumsy words. It was him that should be apologising to her, not the other way around! And what did she mean by wittering on about her daughter's progress? He was not some maiden aunt anxiously following the career of his sister's prodigious spawn, unless—

Surely the old woman did not still believe that he possessed the power to make Little Meg an empress?

The idea was absurd, and her naivety plunged him to new low of wretchedness as he considered what further abuses she might have been willing to suffer in the delusional belief that he would repay her in such a way. Poor Madame Giry – Poor Clementine! How strange it felt to know her name after all these years. Somehow it made his betrayal seem even crueller, and the lump in his throat became even more painful when he noticed the familiar brown paper bag resting on top of his other provisions. She was too good to him! When the time came he would make sure that she was properly provided for – after so many years exhorting money from the Opera management he possessed more than enough to make sure that the old woman would never have to scrub another corridor. She could retire to cottage in the country and live in comfort for the rest of her days. It was a poor apology, he realised, but the idea soothed his conscience slightly as he opened the bag and reached inside for the figs…

… and pulled out another box of matches!

Erik stared at the matchbox as it lay in the palm of his hand. He did not react with anger or surprise, but with complete and utter stillness, like a rabbit when it senses the hawk that hunts it.

Madame Giry had not done this.

Someone else knew that he was here…

A chill crept over him. In practical terms, someone must have been going into the basket during the day that passed between Madame Giry putting it into the crate and him coming to collect it. His gaze swept around the cellar, peering anxiously into every corner, although he already knew there was no-one there now. He would have sensed them as soon as he stepped out from behind the backcloth. No, the culprit had fled without waiting to see the impact of his handiwork.

What devilment was going on here? This was the third week that the matches had appeared in the basket, so the culprit must have seen the correspondence between himself and Madame Giry. It followed from the contents of these letters that whoever it was must have known how close he was to realising that someone else was involved … and yet they had continued with their bizarre scheme.

But who were they, and what did they want from him?

Persia sprang to mind, but the Khanom was long dead, and the old daroga believed that Erik had followed in her footsteps – indeed, he had personally placed notice of his death in _L'Epoque_ so that Christine might know that it was time to fulfil her promise. And the matches … he could not fathom their significance. He might have been able to count murder and exhortation amongst his crimes, but he had never been guilty of arson. He thought back over his gruesome career but could not think of anyone, not even a slighted flame-thrower, for whom the matches could be a symbolic gesture.

Unless it was someone he did not know, a thrill-seeker bent on tracking down the famous opera ghost.

The chill in his veins hardened to ice. Never mind that he was actively preparing for death – he proposed to meet his maker on equal terms, not smoked out like a rat for someone else's amusement. He was no longer a sideshow freak! A cold and deadly rage began to overtake him. Instinctively, he reached into the pocket of his cloak, fingering the familiar coil of his Punjab lasso.

When they returned, he would be waiting…


End file.
